Hockey great Dryden to teach U of C course on Canada’s future

Michael Wright, Calgary Herald01.08.2014

Ken Dryden, a former NHL goaltender and Liberal MP, will teach a course at the University of Calgary titled Making the Future, aimed at encouraged students to “help shape” the future of Canada.Malcolm Taylor

Former Montreal Canadiens goaltender Ken Dryden will teach a course simultaneously at the University of Calgary and McGill University in Montreal on the future of Canada.ALLEN MCINNIS
/ The Gazette

When Ken Dryden was goaltender for the six-time Stanley Cup-winning Montreal Canadiens in the 1970s, he got asked one question over again: ‘Why are you guys so good?’

Aside from having great players, the only answer people would accept was that it was tradition. The Canadiens won because they always won.

Starting Thursday, the hockey great will challenge Calgary university students to think a little deeper than that.

Dryden will teach a Canadian Studies course on the future to students at the University of Calgary and McGill University this term.

He will split his time between Calgary and Montreal, using a video link to teach the class in both cities simultaneously.

The course, called ‘Making the Future’, will look at the history of topics such as health care, politics, family and religion in Canada, before turning their attention forward.

Students, and guest speakers, will consider what lies ahead for Canada in each field.

“The goal is to help the students understand that this is your world and your life,” Dryden said.

“You will play a part, in some way, in Canada’s future. So why not play a significant role and help shape that future?”

Dryden developed the course after losing his seat in the 2011 Canadian federal election, and has been teaching it at McGill for the past two years.

By focusing it on the future, Dryden hopes students will come to consider what Canada is, and may become, from their own perspective.

“Often when students will talk about the future they’ll talk about ‘they’ve always done this, and so probably that’s what they’ll do’. No. This isn’t a ‘they’, this is you. This is your life. Start with getting your own self in it.”

Dryden’s experience in Parliament made him believe those leading the country had lost sight of what Canada really was.

“Our understanding of Canada was really not what Canada had become,” he said.

“We were not reflecting the Canada that is, or the Canada that can be.

“We are a far different place than we were 30 years ago but if we don’t understand ourselves that way then we will not reflect something different and reflect what is really in us.”

Students will work with their counterparts in the other university, and co-operate on assignments.

One class each will focus on issues in Alberta and Quebec.

“Alberta has so many resources to generate the kinds of possibilities to make that question of where do you want to go? … a central question,” Dryden said.

If the expanded course is a success it could grow further, he said.

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